Rams return to Los Angeles after two decades

“This was pretty amazing to a guy like me to seeing something sitting here like this, 300 acres, that’s bigger than Century City, it’s bigger than a footprint of downtown Beverly Hills, I mean you can do things here as a developer like me, that you can do scale, you can do things that are exciting, and you can combine it with sports, and we’ve done that in other places but not on the scale of Los Angeles.”

3. (SOUNDBITE) (English) RAMS OWNER STAN KROENKE, SAYING:

“But this is all about football really. This is the great history of the Los Angeles Rams.”/APPLAUSE

4. VARIOUS OF RAMS SUPPORTERS CHANTING

5. (SOUNDBITE) (English) RAMS SUPPORTER, ANDRE, SAYING:

“Thank you for Kroenke, thank for the NFL for coming back, and hopefully we’ll win a lot of Super Bowls and this will be the best party in the world, this is the centre for sports, the Olympics, this will be the final fours, this will be Super Bowl’s I’m so excited …”

6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) FORMER RAMS PLAYER JIM EVERETT, SAYING:

“I think it’s first class, I think anytime you relocate it’s about the fans leaving, we knew that 21 years ago. I think with what they’re bringing right now, the product that they’re bringing, 2019 I think it will be exactly what L.A. needs. I think this group is the group to do it, I think they’ve got a nice young football team.”

7. (SOUNDBITE) (English) RAMS SUPPORTER, JOE, SAYING:

“He corrected a wrong that happened 20 years ago, the wrong was right so I’m happy they’re back, I’ve been a Rams fan for a long time.”

8. VARIOUS OF RAMS SUPPORTERS CHANTING

STORY: Los Angeles on Friday (January 15) celebrated the return of the National Football League and the Rams, who had called the City of Angels their home for 49 years.

Some experts believe that there will be much work to be done to re-establish a fan base for the Rams in L.A., but the scores of chanting fans who turned out at the event in Inglewood on Friday seemed to disprove that theory.

Rams owner Stan Kroenke said his team’s new stadium and grounds would be built on a massive scale.

“This was pretty amazing to a guy like me to seeing something sitting here like this, 300 acres, that’s bigger than Century City, it’s bigger than a footprint of downtown Beverly Hills, I mean you can do things here as a developer like me, that you can do scale, you can do things that are exciting, and you can combine it with sports, and we’ve done that in other places but not on the scale of Los Angeles,” said Kroenke, about the team’s new stadium that is slated to open in 2019.

“But this is all about football really. This is the great history of the Los Angeles Rams,” added Kroenke.

The Rams are slated to have a splashy, state of the art stadium in place for 2019 but in the meantime will play in the massive and aging Los Angeles Coliseum.

In spite of the NFL being the country’s most popular professional sports league, it has been 21 years since the United States’ second-largest media market had a team in the NFL.

Still, a number of pumped up fans were elated that the NFL approved the shift of the St. Louis Rams back to Los Angeles starting next season.

“Thank you for Kroenke, thank for the NFL for coming back, and hopefully we’ll win a lot of Super Bowls and this will be the best party in the world, this is the center for sports, the Olympics, this will be the final fours, this will be Super Bowl’s I’m so excited,” said Andre, a Rams supporter.

“He [Kroenke] corrected a wrong that happened 20 years ago, the wrong was right so I’m happy they’re back, I’ve been a Rams fan for a long time,” added Joe, another Rams fan from Los Angeles.

But having gone more than two decades since the Rams and Raiders left Los Angeles following the 1994 season, the returning Rams will require a strong marketing campaign to stake out their territory in a crowded entertainment marketplace.

“I think anytime you relocate it’s about the fans leaving, we knew that 21 years ago. I think with what they’re brining right now, the product that they’re bringing, 2019 I think it will be exactly what L.A. needs. I think this group is the group to do it, I think they’ve got a nice young football team,” said former Rams player Jim Everett.

Many fans are hoping the move to sunny Los Angeles will end the Rams’ losing streak.

The Rams have posted nine straight losing seasons with just four winning campaigns in 21 years in St. Louis and a cumulative 64-127-1 record.